Customer Reviews

Cthulhu's Reign

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The premise of Cthulhu's Reign is simple. What happens to humanity after the rising of R'lyeh? Most Cthulhu mythos fiction is concerned with discovering the existence of humanity's true place in the order of things or about cultists trying to bring back Cthulhu. Cthulhu's Reign takes a different perspective.

The book is a very nice mass market paperback with 309 pages, including a 7 page introduction, and a few pages of authors' biographies. All stores were newly published for this book; I did not see any major typographical errors. The attractive cover art shows immense tentacles rearing up out of the sea but I am not sure who created it, even after going over the book carefully. I was familiar with about half the authors in this volume. I was captivated by the uniformly high quality of the writing; there was not one story that I did not enjoy immensely. I have some beefs of course that I suppose I need to get out of the way. First, as a bibliophile I would have loved a limited edition hardcover, with interior illustrations. In fact, the last mythos anthology I can think of offhand that was published directly as a mmpb was Miskatonic University in 1996! Most such books at least start life as a trade paperback. Perhaps DAW only markets mmpbs? Perhaps it says something about the increasing popularity of fiction inspired by HPL's creations? My second issue is that the title is not listed as volume 1 in DAW's new series of Lovecraftian fiction. Oh, well, I can dream. The introduction by Darrell Schweitzer is, frankly, brilliant. It tells you just about everything you need to know to appreciate where these stories are coming from, and shows off his scholarly credentials to boot. If you never read anything by HPL, he suggests you read The Dunwich Horror, The Call of Cthulhu and The Shadow Over Innsmouth to get the gist. You can find the text of these stories free on line, if you are not a Lovecraftian and want to approach this book with proper frame of reference. The stories in Cthulhu's Reign are quite thematically similar but they are not really monster stories at all, like so many mythos stories are. This is more a series of meditations of human nature at the end of things, a sort of subset of post apocalyptic fiction, this time with tentacles. That makes the anthology all the more fascinating and, I think, broadens its appeal. Having a boatload of talented authors to call upon helped too!

Here are the contents:

The Walker in the Cemetery by Ian Watson - Ian Watson is new to me. Of all the contents, I found the prose here to be the most awkward. At first I was hesitant but I became an enthusiastic fan as Cthulhu spawn traps some surviviors of R'lyeh's rising and a game of cat and mouse ensues.

Sanctuary by Don Webb - Mr. Webb has a collection with many stories of interest to Lovecraftians, When They Came. A small village in south Texas has so far been overlooked, mstly, by the earth's new masters. This was absolutely wonderful. I hope Mr. Webb writes more mythos soon.

Her Acres of Pastoral Playground by Mike Allen - Another new author to me, Mr. Allen gives us a wrenching picture of a man struggling to hold his family together in the face of hopelessness.

Spherical Trigonometry by Ken Asamatsu - Asamatsu san edited the landmark series of Japanese mythos stories, Lairs of the Hidden Gods, published in 4 volumes by Kurodahan Press. His presence adds an international feel to the anthology. Everyone knows the Hounds of Tindalos cannot move through curved space. So what to do about that?

What Brings the Void by Will Murray - Will Murray has written a number of Cthulhu mythos stories, notably To Clear the Earth from The Shub Niggurath Cycle; I hope we see more from his pen soon. A NRO operative tries to use his psychic abilities to get intel on the invaders in this engaging story.

The New Pauline Corpus by Matt Cardin - Mr. Cardin has a collection, Dark Awakenings coming out from Mythos Books. It will contain his previously hard to get novella, The God of Foulness. Wow, what a magnificent story! A theologian tries to reconcile what has happened with what he spent his life studying.

Ghost Dancing by Darrell Schweitzer - The estimable editor of Chtulhu's Reign is a Lovecraftian scholar who wrote the biographical Discovering HP Lovecraft. He also wrote one of my favorite mythos stories, Why We Do It, found in Dead But Dreaming. What can you salvage at the end of all things? The allusion to the Ghost Dancing movement was acute.

This is How the World Ends by John R. Fultz - Mr. Fultz wrote a short novel online, The Wizards of Hyperborea, perhaps more in the vein of Clark Ashton Smith. Alas I don't know if the work is still available; I have not seen it in print. When R'lyeh rises will you fall, fight or be assimilated? Like many other stories here, the protagonist is moved to cling to his humanity.

The Shallows by John Langan - I am unfamiliar with the work or Mr. Langan but I have to remedy that! The Shallows is another brilliant story, as moving for what is says as much as what it doesn't, as a man clings to his daily routine.

Such Bright and Risen Madness in Our Names by Jay Lake - Another new author for me. A man, or what was once a man, joins with others to resist what has happened. The prose and plotting were top notch.

The Seals of New R'lyeh by Gregory Frost - Apparently Mr. Frost will be appearing at the 2010 Odyssey Writing Workshop; he is new to me. OK, we would like to think we will all behave nobly when the worst comes. Why then did I chortle so much while reading about these two petty crooks who keep trying to get aleg up, with mixed results.

Holocaust of Ecstasy by Brian Stableford - Mr. Stabelford has a short mythos novel coming out soon from Perilous Press, The Womb of Time. The title of this story comes from a line by HPL. What exactly he meant is open to speculation, so Mr. Stableford gives us his meditation on what the future holds.

Vastation by Laird Barron - I loved Mr. Barron's collection The Imago Sequence with the incredible story Old Virginia; his new collection Occultation will be out soon from Nightshade Books and I hope it has some Lovecraftian stories. Vastation was fascinating and complex, with layered prose and was also wonderful.

Nothing Personal by Richard Lupoff - Mr. Lupoff is well known to mythos fans for his collections Terrors and Visions. A first alien encounter doesn't exactly go as planned in this gripping story.

Remnants by Fred Chappell - I confess I could not stand Mr. Chappell's novel, Dagon, but I like his short fiction. Remnants may actually have been the most upbeat of all the stories here.

I think this book is a triumph. Although a Cthulhu mythos anthology, it focuses on the human response to the unthinkable. I really liked all of the stories and some were flat out brilliant, where usually in this type of book there are more than a few dogs; I credit Mr. Schweitzer's selection of talented writers for this. Furthermore Cthulhu's Reign is an inexpensive mass market paperback, making it a bargain. I only hope Mr. Schweitzer and DAW have more such books in the planning stages.

PS: The editor is not the only one who can use Cthulhu in a limerick:
A tentacled Old One named Cthulhu
In space devoured Captain Sulu
The Enterprise tasted
Not so bad when well basted
With the crewmen all crying, boo hulhu

All of Lovecraft's stories hint at a time in the future when Cthulhu and other terrible things from beyond space and time will return to bring the earth back under "their dark and terrible sway." The stories in this collection are all versions of what the world is like after this has happened.

I also liked the introduction by the editor and found his insight into the philosophical difference between Lovecraft's work and those of some of his followers really interesting. He mentions how Lovecraft wrote in world where there were things so totally outside of the human sphere of understanding, so totally alien, that not only could we barely understand them, but that we were as unworthy of there notice as some kind of insect larvae would be to us. We do not merit there attention except maybe as food. Some of the authors who went on to write stories in in the Cthulhu Mythos wrote them in terms of good fighting evil. The editor goes so far as to call this "Derlethian heresy" in that it denies the core of Lovecraft's view of the universe as "a vast, impersonal, mindless chaos, in which we exist purely by biological-chemical accident, and on a very small scale. His utterly inhuman monsters are symbols of forces in the cosmos-at-large for which human endeavors have no significance or validity." It is in the realization that the moral order we impose on our universe is just a frail concept and has no meaning to these creatures that descend upon us, that true horror begins. The horror we would feel if we were treated like we treat chickens or cattle or even yeast. All the stories in this anthology follow what the editor would call Lovecraft's philosophy.

I don't know how anyone who had not read at least some of Lovecraft's original stories would like this as a stand-alone collection of horror stories. If you haven't read at least "At The Mountains Of Madness", "The Call of Cthulhu", "Nyarlathotep", "The Shadow Out of Time" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", I can't imagine how you would understand what is going on in some if not most of the stories. If you enjoyed Lovecraft's work, this has some interesting takes on what will happen when the stars are right. =)

HPL avoided writing his own story on this theme - Old Ones conquer Earth - IMO because the topic offers too little creative possibilities. Old Ones trying to infiltrate Earth = many options for stories, Old Ones ruling Earth = Game Over, humans run around like cockroaches caught when one turns on the light in a Manhattan kitchen at 4 AM, and are crushed like bugs after some futile scurrying. That summary covers maybe 90% of the content herein, so if you read straight through, you will get mighty bored.

Schweitzer's career as editor and author has trod a fine line between the professional horror field and the murkier fanfic realm of some dude in Mom's basement cranking out six page Cthuluian pulp mags on his Mac. Schweitzer knows both kinds of writers and reached out to them for this collection. This collection treads a similar path between writers you probably have never heard of even if you read a lot of horror, and more well-known guys like Langan, Lupoff, & Barron. The split is roughly 50/50 with all the big names towards the rear of the book.

My favorite story is actually probably the worst one in here, Ian Watson's "The Walker in the Cemetery" feels like a classic MST3K episode - "Terror of Mini-Cthulhu" or "I Married an Elder God". Tourists in a Genoan cemetery are isolated in a little time pocket during the Fall of Mankind and are stalked by a 7 foot tall Cthulhu (not the Spawn of Cthulhu mind you, the big kahuna himself). The characters somehow leap to all kinds of inexplicable conclusions involving the CERN particle accelerator and then the lead stereotype. the Militaristic Elderly Prussian, postulates there might be a smaller version of Cthulhu in the cemetery somewhere and if only they can find and kill dwarf Cthulhu, they will kill all the bigger ones including their stalker. They all grab shovels and rakes and start looking for Baby Cthulhu, but the 7 foot tall Mini-Cthulhu is all they find. This is more than enough to keep them occupied.

Mini-C disembowels some fodder with his claws, rips one guy's head and spinal cord out a la Mortal Kombat, and generally acts like an octopoid (and more effective) Tom with the rapidly diminishing (and virtually ineffectual) tourists playing the roles of Jerry. Watson even gives us an itemized list of name, nationality, and profession so we can use it as a score card to see who's still standing. The characters have so little personality that the few caricatures we are exposed to (the dumb Evangelical Christian Americans, the superstitious Italian peasants, the Tragic Honeymooners, etc) stand out from the anonymous ranks.

When the roster diminishes, Mini-C decides to be sporting and leaves out plates of salami & pasta to keep the survivors alive longer so he can toy with them further. (He gets these from Bennie's Inter-Dimensional Deli, a well-known R'ylehian eatery...OK, kidding about the deli. The food source is not mentioned specifically.)

Anyway, this hybrid of Friday the 13th and the Call of Cthulhu continues interminably, and then we have euthanasia by judo strangulation, tentacle rape (complete with Hentai trademark Irresistible Feminine Ecstasy), the Bride and Child of Cthulhu, and souls transmigrated into statues. This is an unintentionally hilarious read but fortunately (?) the rest of the collection is not quite so absurd.

Anyway, among the lesser known writes, Webb is excellent, Asamatsu good, and the rest kind of tread water. Cardin's theological essay linking the New Testament with Cthulhu stands out for its oddity but not in a good way. It is both a bit of a philosophical stretch and also not really a story as not much happens besides a shell narrative framing the essay. Schweitzer's own piece is mediocre, not his best stuff, and the Murray story is disappointing as it seems to be setting up a plot involving psychic spies & human resistance and then goes nowhere other than the usual soul-shattering doom and despair. Among the pros, most are OK, Langan and Lake are very good, and Barron excellent.

If you really, really, really like the Cthulhu mythos, and indeed read nothing else but Cthulhu fic and Permuted Press zombie lit, get this. If you want to see Cthulhu deliver Italian food to tentacle fodder tourists, get this. Other than these pretty small sub-groups, general readers and even mainstream horror fic fans can probably pass on this. Datlow's "Lovecraft Unbound" has much higher quality content available for HPL fans that are looking for mood and stylistic proficiency rather than big monsters smashing buildings with tentacles. Few of these stories achieve the existential subtlety of Lovecraft's best work, and most aim for the quick and obvious effects of supernatural apocalypse fiction by taking very similar paths.

This collection's theme is grim and simple. As predicted -- and prevented in many of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos stories, Cthulhu and the Old Ones once again dominate Earth.

Rape, transformation, and religion are themes that show up in several stories.

On a metaphorical level, a sort of intellectual rape - the forcible introduction of unwelcome, devastating knowledge into the mind - occurs in many a Mythos story. But, in two stories, Cthulhu commits a literal rape. A group of survivors find themselves trapped and experimentally winnowed down in an Italian necropolis after Cthulhu's return in Ian Watson's chilling, first person narrated "The Walker in the Cemetery". In John R. Fultz's "This Is How the World Ends", an Iraqi War veteran finds himself holed up in a mine as a horrible transformation is wrecked on the world outside.

Not exactly rape, but a gathering of horrible knowledge anyway, is the theme in Brian Stableford's "The Holocaust of Ecstasy". In this story, full of imagery that owes more to Clark Ashton Smith than Lovecraft, a biology professor from Miskatonic University, finds himself reincarnated into an alien ecosystem. Of course, Cthulhu's return is a time of transformation, and many stories take up that theme. In Jay Lake's "Such Bright and Risen Madness", a resistance movement secretly meets on a blighted, chilling Earth to hear of a new weapon which may free them from their masters, the Old Ones. Slowly transforming from "Innsmouth Syndrome", the narrator feels the almost forgotten stirrings of sexual desire when he meets the plan's architect. But he also encounters a figure from his past in a brilliant tale of despair and resolve. The hero of Mike Allen's "Her Acres of Pastoral Playground" inhabits a zone relatively safe from the Cthulhian horrors outside, but cosmic chaos still intrudes in unwelcome changes to his wife's body.

Of course cults and magical rites were frequently a feature of Lovecraft's own Mythos stories, but several authors here ambitiously take that religious element even further. The most stunning here is by a onetime religious scholar, Matt Cardin. "The New Pauline Corpus" logically, horrifyingly, weaves an account of the sights of a Cthulhu dominated Earth with the writings of a Protestant theologian to produce a melange of Christ and Cthulhu, Jerusalem and R'lyeh, a new, "less agreeable" Revelation. Don Webb's "Sanctuary" has a man sent on a mission, by a Catholic priest, to retrieve a special bible three years after Cthulhu has risen in the Pacific. The priest has some disturbing ideas about what man's new purpose on Earth is. Will Murray's "What Brings the Void" (sort of a sequel to his "The Sothis Radiant" in Miskatonic University) reinterprets the pantheon of the Mythos. A remote viewer from the National Reconnaissance Office is sent on a mission to see, in the normal way, what's going on in the zones of America controlled by the Old Ones and finds a another Catholic priest, but this one is preaching a strange new gospel of death. While the title of Darrell Schweitzer's "Ghost Dancing" alludes to a famous end-of-the-world cult, its hero is offered, by an old acquaintance, a chance to make himself useful to Earth's new masters.

Several stories are sort of off by themselves. Since it mentions Yuggoth and is written by Richard A. Lupoff, who used that same planet of Lovecraft in his brilliant "Discovery of the Ghooric Zone -- March 15, 2337", it's sort of a surprise that "Nothing Personal" is a rather standard tale of how an alien-human war breaks out and its resolution. Not a bad story but it doesn't have much of a Mythos feel to it. Fred Chappell's long "Remnants" also often seems, in its story of members of the Peaslee family pathetically living in caves to escape the Old Ones and their shoggoths, rather more like regular science fiction than a Mythos story. But there are elements of cosmic horror as the family decides to heed the telepathic message received by its autistic member.

A couple of stories are as blackly light hearted as the collection's theme will allow. Ken Asamatsu's "Spherical Trigonometry" has a wealthy Japanese businessman, his wife, and the narrator and his wife retreating to a safe house with no angles. In there, they hope to ride out the "Change". "The Seals of New R'lyeh" by Gregory Frost is sort of a cross between a hardboiled crime story and a Mythos story as two thieves look for a seal to magically expel Cthulhu from Earth in the ruins of New York City.

Two outliers of stories stand alone in their style and ambition. "The Shallows" by John Langan combines a family drama with imagery from Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith and never explicitly mentions any of the standard Cthulhu props of blasphemous books and malevolent alien entities. Laird Barron's "The Vastation" is, I think, a solipistic tale of a time traveling religious leader who may just be the last real human on an Earth populated by androids in the wake of an alien invasion, massive genetic engineering, and racial purges. You may find yourself concluding, like me, that these stories don't quite work even after a second reading but still applaud the authors' imagination and ambition to combine cosmic horror and the trappings of the literary puzzle story.

This anthology is so good that I think even those unfamiliar with Lovecraft may like it even if oblivious to some of the nuances. It's getting a four instead of the perfect five because not every story was great but many were.

This collection of fifteen short stories is centered around the theme of how would look our Earth and what would happen to human race once "the stars are right", the city of R'lyeh rises from its watery grave and Cthulhu wakes up for good, to take control of our world. It is, I believe, the first such attempt and the collection as a whole is surprisingly good. Of all the collections of stories inspired by Lovecraft this is definitely one of the best I ever read. One warning here - because of the topic almost all those stories are very very dark, even more than the usual SF stories about the end of the world. If you feel a little bit down, this book is not advised - it can really seriously depress you.

Except a mistake on my part all those stories were written in 2010 specially for this collection, so there is little chance that you already know them. Some authors are known to fantasy and SF fans (Fred Chappell, Ian Watson, Brian Stableford), but most of them I did not know at all - still some of them provided very good texts. Here is more details about the stories, with some very limited SPOILERS:

"The walker in the cemetery" by Ian Watson - a quite good, although very cruel story about a group of tourists surprised by the end of our world in an old Italian cemetery; it begins slowly, but after couple of pages it becomes quite interesting; in this one Cthulhu displays a very godlike feature - the gift of ubiquity - and also a very demoniac one - perverted sadism. The story is quite gory and gets worse and worse at every page, so be warned.

"Sanctuary" by Don Webb - here we have a small town somewhere in Texas which was temporary spared by the new masters of our world, as it is too insignificant to attract their attention; still people who live there are aware that their "sanctuary" will not last - which drives some of them to mad and desperate expedients... The description of the daily life in this doomed little town is quite good. However, I did not like the ending and I especially did not like the Christian bashing, which I should expect, given that the author, Don Webb, is member of a rather weird neo-pagan cult (The Temple of Set).

"Her acres of pastoral playground" by Mike Allen - a very good story about a man who somehow managed to hide himself and his family from the new masters of the world... The author is mostly known for his poetry, so the descriptions of the new world in this one are particularly well done. The story is quite surprising, so no more details will be provided.

"Spherical trigonometry" by Ken Asamatsu - this is a rare jewel - a lovecraftian story coming from Asia and translated from Japanese; it is quite good and once again it deals with the efforts a man, very well versed in the arts of occult, made to hide himself from the returning Old Gods; the story is very twisted and surprising.

"What brings the void" by Will Murray - the story of a professional soldier who tries to get some intelligence about the invading Old Gods and bring it to his commanding officer; this is one of the cruellest stories in the collection and to any believing Christian it is particularly blasphematory; but I must admit that it is very well written. And it is really nightmarish.

"The new Pauline corpus" by Matt Cardin - the author of this story is a specialist of religious history and it immediately shows in the text; this is the story about a Protestant theologian who in letters to a fellow Catholic professor tries to make some sense of the end of our world and to interpret it according to the Scriptures. I must confess that I did not like that one, because although it displays a very deep knowledge of the letter of Christian teachings, it also shows complete misunderstanding of their spirit.

"Ghost dancing" by Darrell Schweitzer - the author of this story is also the editor of the whole collection; the title refers to the spiritual ceremonies American Indians held once they were defeated and locked up in the reservations; by dancing the "ghost dance" they hoped that they could implore the spirits to destroy the Whites and give them back their lands; here author describes a somehow similar situation of the doomed humanity, whose armies are defenceless against Old Gods... a very good and very dark story with a very interesting ending

"This is how the world ends" by John R. Fultz - one of the best and one of the cruellest in the whole collection and with a very surprising ending. Absolutely no more details - you deserve to discover it by yourself.

"The shallows" by John Langan - another excellent and horribly dark story; one of the best things I read since long time; the story is slow paced and not linear but it is important to read it in one go, so try to save two hours of an evening to go through it - otherwise you could get lost in the narration.

"Such bright and risen madness in our names" by Jay Lake - even against Cthulhu and his minions some survivors will try to fight back and resist to the bitter end and this short but powerful story describes one of groups of such survivors; I liked that one very much.

"The seals of New R'lyeh" by Gregory Frost - this is the second best story in the book and the only one to be absolutely not serious; this story of two conmen who try to survive in the new world reality in the city of New R'lyeh (formerly known as New York) is one of the most hilarious things I read this last time; an absolute treasure!

"The holocaust of ecstasy" by Brian Stableford - this is another very powerful story; one of the few lovecraftian texts which really well explain why exactly Abdul Al-Azhred lost his sanity when he discovered what exactly the Old Gods were planning to do with humanity once they returned...

"Vastation" by Laird Barron - this is the weakest story in the collection; I absolutely couldn't understand what this story is about and frankly I believe that author wrote it when drunk or high, as it doesn't' make any sense at all;

"Nothing personal" by Richard A. Lupoff - a very clever and sadistically twisted short story which perceives lovecraftian Mythos through the lenses of classical SF; a little jewel which I loved!

"Remnants" by Fred Chappell - the longest and the best story in the collection, very touching and very dark, but one of the few in which at least a little glimmer of hope remains. It is extremely well written and very well thought - and there will be no more details provided. Enjoy!

Conclusion: an excellent and very original book, which offers a great value for a very little price. To buy, read and keep!

well considering that this is the ONLY book showing what would happen after cthulhu shows up i can say that is very original

This is a nice collection of apocalyptic Cthulhu mythos stories. I can't say it was remarkable in any way, but it did keep my attention and was an enjoyable read. I will be looking up a couple of the authors from this book to check out their other work.

Definitely worth the low Amazon price.

I like HP Lovecraft quite a bit - my husband's best friend gave us a Lovecraft omnibus with excellent endnotes as a wedding present. I highly recommend it if you like that sort of thing - Lovecraft Tales compiled and annotated by Peter Straub. This is a different thing...

It's not very fair to rate an anthology of stories by different authors en bloc so I will admit that there are a few good stories in here. On the other hand, there were several that made me want to memorise the authors' names so I never waste time on their work again. Most were "meh". Overall I think reading it provided low value for time, let alone money (glad I borrowed this from the public library only).

The walker in the cemetery, Ian Watson - writing OK but extremely unoriginal plot of "monster loose in creepy place picks people off one-by-one".

Sanctuary, Don Webb - One of the better stories, about a small southwestern town trying to survive as reality and sanity fall apart all over.

Her acres of pastoral playground, Mike Allen - Another of the good stories. Couple trapped in bubble of unreality, haunted by ghost of their daughter - for good reason.

Spherical trigonometry, Ken Asamatsu - With translations, I can never tell whether the writing style is a bit "off" because of the translator, or whether the original was also written in a stilted style and the translator was trying to convey it. A "panic room" that turns out to be less of a safe haven than hoped. Interesting characters, plot a bit blah.

What brings the void, Will Murray - crap writing, silly concepts.

The New Pauline Corpus, Matt Cardin - Letters from a post-Cthulhu bible scholar arguing that Yahweh was Cthulhu all along. Interesting premise and good writing. Probably the only prose in this collection that's up to the writing standards of original Lovecraft, most of the others are in modern sloppy pop horror/fantasy style.

Ghost dancing, Darrell Schweitzer - Battle of wills between two cultists. Not bad, not great.

This is how the world ends: John R Fultz - Survivalist running away from the Old Ones in the US "out west". No spoiler if I tell you they catch up with him...but in a gorily unexpected way.

The Shallows, John Langan - lonely man talking to his pet crab after sending his only son to seek a safe haven. The backstory he tells the crab is the kind of rambling family reminisence that the New York Times likes to print occasionally as a "Fiction" column. Which is pretty good writing per se, but I don't see the point of it in this context.

Such bright and risen madness in our lives, Jay Lake - band of resisters gets hold of a toxin that can kill cultists.

The seals of new R'lyeh, Gregory Frost - a bit more humourous than the other stories. Two professional burglars attempt the biggest heist in post-history.

The holocaust of ecstasy, Brian Stableford - surreal in a way that the other stories don't achieve. Kind of Hieronymus Bosch-esque. Features a cameo of a member of the Great Race of Yith who was in the wrong place at the DEFINITELY wrong time.

Vastation, Laird Barron - stream-of-consciousness narrative + Cthulhu = 18 pages of
gibberish.

Nothing personal, Richard A. Lupoff - more badly-written science fiction with cheesy terminology. And as a virologist, I take offense at the completely inappropriate metaphor that wraps it up.

Remnants, Fred Chappell - so-so story, but way too long. I also wish that autism would stop being cool so that not every science fiction story that features an autistic character assumes the condition comes with superpowers.

Cthulhu ftaghn, and let's hope he stays that way.

More explicit than typical period Mythos stories

But that's to be expected from stories written now, i guess.
All are very dark except the last one, which I found redeeming
in a book which had 90% Dark endings.

Great expansion of the Mythos, for long time Mythos readers...
I wouldn't recommend it for for a newbie, unless they were
darkly twisted already.

DoctorSlime

I was looking for something a bit more unique and provocative in the the story plots and presentation.
Perhaps a few stories written in an earlier style,closer to what HLP might have done,or his contemporaries.
Maybe a few settings in the 30's-40's would do the job.As it is,the scenes are all in the present or near future,and thus blend in more with contemporary horror literature than with what I expect from the genre.
Still a good read,but left me wanting a bit.